While researching the Battle of the Atlantic for the sermon at Mass, I stumbled upon an actual event from the Battle that makes a wonderful metaphor for understanding our faith.
So let me take you back to 1942, as the Nazi noose was slowly tightening
around Britain, strangling its naval supply routes through its Rudeltaktik, or 'wolf pack' strategy.
Traditionally submarines were used as lone ambushers, but Nazi Commodore Karl Donitz innovated a new strategy: while Allied warships engaged in a cat-and-mouse hunt with individual submarines, the rest of the submarines in the wolf pack would be neglected, and able to attack the merchant ships with impunity.
But what was key to Nazis being able to coordinate their attacks, was
their ability to communicate with German high command through unbreakable codes.
Enter the Enigma Machine. This was a small, portable encryption device
used by U-Boats that allowed them to receive coded messages on the
location of enemy ships. Thus prowling U-Boats were constantly on the
attack.
The genius of the Enigma Machine was in its coupling of letters: they
were constantly changed so the encrypted messages were never the same,
making the code, with its billions of possible combinations, nearly
impossible to break.
Hitler, and many of his commanders, believed Enigma was invincible. They
were wrong.
On October 30, 1942 the HMS Petard and three other British destroyers
were pursuing U-559 in the Mediterranean Sea, not far from the Egyptian
shore. U-559 was proving why U-Boats were so dangerous. She was elusive. The chase lasted 16 hours before U-559's Commander decided to scuttle his damaged ship about 70 miles north of the Nile Delta.
Demonstrating courage that to this day is hard to comprehend, three
young men swam from the HMS Petard and boarded the sinking sub. Lt. Tony Fasson,Able Seaman Colin Grazier, and Canteen Assistant Tommy Brown. These men swam out with a tiny skiff and descended into the sinking submarine in hopes of retrieving an Enigma Machine, not knowing what perils lay waiting for them; were they to be greeted by remaining Nazi crewmembers? Boobytraps perhaps?
Though they penetrated the sinking sub, they could not remove U-559's
Enigma Machine from its mount. But with Brown at the top of the ladder,
water streaming into the stricken vessel, Fasson and Grazier quickly
passed the short signal weather code and the short signal code book up
to Brown, who threw them into the skiff.
With death by drowning a near certainty if they didn't immediately leave
the ship, Fasson and Grazier continued to gather Enigma documents,
keypads and codes. Brown threw them all into the skiff. Barely a blink
of an eye after Brown had the priceless Nazi codes on the skiff, U-559
sank. Fasson and Grazier went down with her.
Tommy Brown, the Canteen Assistant, turned over one of the most
important finds of WWII. He was 16 years old. Wanting to fight for his
country, he had lied about his age. Fasson and Grazier received
Britain's second-highest honor for bravery, the George Cross. Brown
received the George Medal. Two years later Brown was also dead. He died
trying to rescue his two sisters from their burning slum tenement.
U-559's soaked Enigma documents turned out to be an even-more astounding recovery than anyone could have imagined. It contained the keys to the major German U-Boat codes Shark and Triton, which gave the allies a huge tactical advantage that without a doubt shortened the war.
Without their sacrifice, the German U-Boat codes would not have been
broken until much later, if at all. But because they were broken, the
Allies were able to establish naval supremacy in the Atlantic that much
sooner. Naval supremacy meant an earlier D-Day. An earlier Normandy
invasion meant the cost of human lives would be less terrible.
So how does all of this speak to the question of faith?
Don't we all, in prayer and in our spiritual life, descend into the
greatest Enigma Machine of all, the human heart?
Although it would be far easier to just keep sailing along, looking
forward to that next port call, our faith calls us to go beyond. It
calls us to descend into the depths of the heart and wrestle with its
mysteries. And bring them to the light.
And the heart is filled with its share of peril, with all of its pain,
resentments and selfishness. But when we confront its mystery, we do not
do so alone. Christ decodes God for us so that we may understand how to
harmonize our own heart with the intent of the Creator.
And when that happens, we discover what Christ promises, "a peace that
the world cannot give". But it is not a peace that promises serenity or
an easy life. It is a peace which allows us to hear that still small
voice that can sometimes call us to great sacrifice and courage.
When we are in tune with that voice, its fruits are literally
unfathomable. Just as this 16yr old canteen assistant couldn't have
imagined that his actions would help bring WW2 to a close, we will never
know how our commitment to Christ can impact others, and impact the
world.
Faith then, is what draws us into the story of Redemption. It is where
we play our small role on the stage of God's saving activity.
Allow me to conclude with an insight from theologian Reinhold Niebhur
that speaks to this. He writes:
"Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate
context of history; Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
And no virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our
friend or foe as from our own; Therefore, we are saved by the final form
of love, which is forgiveness."
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